another one

Another great rainy day here in SoCal. Love it!

Today consisted of three kids, mine and two guests and boy was it busy and yet so under-stimulating. I am in desperate need of a girls night out where I can let loose for a few hours! I am thinking a karaoke night with a few drinks in hand sounds really good!!! I need to make a note to fit that into my schedule.

In typing this, I see that it is not as easy as I thought to get my feelings into words and into this blog. Where do I start? How truthful can I be? Who is reading this? Should I keep this blog private to myself or allow others to read it? What should I write about? Love? Family? Friends? Enemies? Sex? Work? Kids? Recipes? Screwed up childhoods? :o) I am going to test the waters of my emotions and write a little bit of everything for now. Eventually, I can pin down more of a subject, but now I will be carefree and just write to write.

I will write about Kelli today.

Kelli, nickname, Kelli K. was my very first friend and the bestest of all friends. We met in kindergarten at Mary B. Lewis Elementary School. We were two peas in a pod, doing everything together. We chased the same boys around the playground. We did our hair the same on most days and we even dressed alike. We lied to everyone and said we were cousins. We even had matching beauty marks on our faces. It may sound weird today, but we even showered together until we were in atleast 4th grade. Life was so innocent during my childhood. We knew everything about each other. We were the best of friends. Together we were so immature that we got kicked out of our sexual education class because we got the giggles so bad after the teacher had tried to explain that boys had "wet dreams". Instead of sex education, we were the only fifth graders that were not allowed into that class. Instead we had an extra hour of recess during that class to play tetherball outside on the playground. There was no stress or drama in our friendship - until we hit junior high, but that could be expected in any friendship.

When I look at my daughter and see her friendships, it is not the same. She will never experience the craziness and the innocence that I had the privledge in knowing in my youth. My daughter at age nine has a life filled with so much un-needed stress. School is stressful. Homework is stressful and her friendships are stressful. She is not allowed to live like a kid. There is so much pressure on her to grow up and it has made me sad. She does not have friends where she can fart freely and giggle about it. She does not have friends where she can really act like a dork without being made fun of.

Junior high for me was a mess. I was the only one in my friend circle that was dealing with divorcing parents and I felt like such an outsider. Kelli and I grew apart, probably more of my jealousy because her parents were the married forever type. My parents were the ones who were really immature and their fighting led to many visits by the police. Kelli's parents no longer wanted their daughter at a place where there was craziness going on. They also did not try to save me from this fiasco either - not because they had to - but I had hoped they would, but they never did. Going through the divorce, I found a couple of new friends, but none of them were close or memorable as Kelli and I once were.

Kelli and I drifted more and more apart. I ended going to another junior high and high school and only saw her a few times here and there, but our friendship died.

After I graduated I moved to Florida for a few years and when I made my way back home, I was just about to turn 21 and wanted to go to Vegas for the weekend. The only friend I wanted by my side was Kelli. I called her and away we went. We had an AWESOME time! We drank all night, played the penny slots, rode the elevators up and down drunk as hell and had to crawl back to our hotel room. Memories like this are priceless in a lifetime.

Kelli and I were back on track to becoming BFFs again, but drama hit my house again. I had moved away from California to get away from my family. I moved back to California to get a relationship back with my family - which proved to be unfruitful. Once again, my mother showed her true colors and I was excused from her home. With that, I cut all strings and took a new road in life and did not invite my friend in that adventure. Instead of venturing out and relying on friendships, I closed down and went into survivor mode.

Ten years later and a brief internet search, I now have my BFF back in my life. We are starting off slow as we both have our own families now and cannot just jump into the car for a slumber party opportunity. We have been writing by email to each other and have talked to each other on the phone. When our schedules mutually allow, we are going to get together and catch up on old times. Our children are the same age, so it will be nice to have a chance to share with them the innocence of our childhood and instill in them that life should not be stressful and hated in the 4th grade. Together, I hope we can let them experience some of the dorkiness that we had in our friendship.

I am thankful to have a tru-blue friend back in my life. I am thankful that I have this opportunity to see re-live the goodness of my childhood and see that the picture wasn't always black and white, but there were rays of sunshine in the darkest of days. :o)